"Life -- is what we make of it --" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

Life -- is what we make of it --[1] Death -- we do not know --[2] Christ's acquaintance with Him[3] Justify Him -- though --[4] He -- would trust no stranger --[5] Other -- could betray --[6] Just His own endorsement --[7] That -- sufficeth Me --[8] All the other Distance[9] He hath traversed first --[10] No New Mile remaineth --[11] Far as Paradise --[12] His sure foot preceding --[13] Tender Pioneer --[14] Base must be the Coward[15] Dare not venture -- now --[16]
Poem 698 [F727] "Life -- is what we make it" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

Emily often expressed doubts about God, but in this poem she shows the same unwavering trust in Jesus that she had shown in poems 225 and 241. We do make Life by our own choices, but Death for men is unknowable. However Jesus himself, trusting no stranger who could betray us by lying, became acquainted with death as the 'Tender Pioneer' and gave us his own endorsement that we could pass through it safely to Paradise. As Emily puts it in poem 1433, 'God sent his son to test the Plank [= the bridge between this life and the next] /and he pronounced it firm.'
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